DebConf 8 in Mar del Plata, Argentina

Me and Ailé arrived at Buenos Aires on saturday. A member of the local team was waiting for people at Ezeiza, and we gave away our 2130 bus reservations in order to take a combi to Mar del Plata with Clint, four fellow german debianites and some venezuelans. The trip was quite long, around six hours IIRC. We arrived in the early moing, and slept past noon.I have no words to describe my particular experience with this year’s conference, but I do agree with our DPL: this has been the best DebConf I’ve ever attended. In general, the Annual Debian Conference is one of the most attractive events for me, since it provides us with the opportunity to share and define a little bit of the future of the universal operating system. I use, develop for and work with this operating system, so there’s the importance of this conference for me.That said, DebConf is a unique event. Some people that I know back in Venezuela are used to a different, more academic style of event, which features a tight schedule and no specific provision of group networking. They are not used to an event like DebConf, and when they attend it they feel they’ve lost their time in an event they don’t understand. And they ask for a participation certificate 🙂 In that respect, besides the very interesting talks and events in the conference, DebConf offers an excellent opportunity for group development and general networking.On the other hand, both the local team and the venue have striked me in many good ways. I’m aware of LatAm limitations for some of the particularities of DebConf such as connectivity, provision for special food needs, special usage of the venue and general receptivity for a bunch of 24/7 geeks. The local team has made a huge effort putting this together in such a special and organized way. I don’t think the Venezuelan DC8 Bid would have made this much success in the same timeframe. Congratulations, Argentina!We will leave Mar del Plata on saturday (at 2200) and then we will spend some more days in Buenos Aires, particularly to attend Debian Day, where I’ll be giving a talk in spanish. Therefore, we’ll be writing a little more (in spanish) about Argentina later, since we loved our time in this country.